Another incredible month. If I had to pick a theme for September, it would definitely be “team building”. The store grew a lot this past month but it wouldn't have been possible without the help of our awesome team.
Unfortunatly/fortunately, we were super busy this past month and didn't have time for any recreation. However, we have an awesome trip planned for November that was paid for with points/eBay profits. We're really excited to share it with you!
Goals for September:
1. List 1000 more items – Done, thanks to my husband. He listed a lot.
2. Get a cash back credit card – Almost done. We had some trouble with our bank but we're getting a card in a couple of weeks with 1.5% back. In the meantime we've been using the PayPal business debit card which gives 1% back on all purchases.
3. Hire a second VA – We actually have five VAs working for us now! They've been a huge help and we literally could not keep this store going without them. They're really hard workers.
Other Things
The last day of September we hit a new personal record: over $3000 in sales in one day! A lot of that credit has to go to my husband. He's really been pushing us hard to grow.
Like I said before, it's been a really busy month. Unfortunatly, that means that I've had to say no to a lot of coaching requests. I'm really hoping to free up some more time so that I can coach more students.
We also tried branching out from Home Depot into different sources but didn't like them very much. We're now using just Home Depot again as of two weeks ago.
An Amazing New Software
We also started using Trackerbot, which automatically grabs tracking numbers from our emails and uploads them to eBay! It has saved us countless hours and I'm amazed at how cheap it is. It's only $19.99/month for 2000 tracking numbers and its even cheaper if you want a smaller plan. That's such a steal for how much time and money it saves us.
It also has outstanding customer service. Home Depot recently changed their shipping confirmation emails. As a result, trackerbot wasn't working correctly. They quickly addressed the problem and fixed it. Now it works about 98% of the time. It only misses a few tracking numbers here and there.
Here is a link to the software. This is an affiliate link but I wouldn't link to them here if I didn't use it and believe that it was awesome:
app.trackerbot.me/signup?ref=634
The Numbers:
Sales revenue: 60,266.49
Refunds Sent: -4,017.57
PayPal fees: -2,445.81
eBay fees: -3,415.05
Cost of goods: -43,012.75
VAs: -514.58
Misc: -87.42
Cash Back: 1,200.36
Total Profit: $7,973.94
Yeah … I know … Wow! I'm continually amazed that the store is continuing to grow. It has been a really wild journey.
Goals for October:
1. List 1000 more.
2. Break $10k in profit.
3. Fully automate the store so that (1) we can enjoy our vacation in November without having to worry about the store and (2) so we can work on growing the store.
4. We have been things planned for a couple of months down the road. More on that in a future post.